Red Hot Chili Peppers - Californication [2LP VINYL]

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Another unofficial version of the album was an “Unmastered/Unsequenced” version that was leaked in 2011. Despite what its title may imply, this release faced a ton of compression on its signal, resulting in distortion comparable to the original retail release. For those not in the know, the “loudness war” is a phenomenon beginning in the mid-90s onward, in which music was mastered louder and louder, with the underlying reasoning being that louder music sounds better, and thus, sells better. As with any medium, however, there is a peak loudness a signal can reach, so dynamic range compression (which makes the louder parts of the signal quieter while keeping the quiet parts the same loudness) and sometimes even clipping (attempting to make a signal louder than maximum loudness) were used to make music as loud as possible.

Californication (1999, 180g, Vinyl Red Hot Chili Peppers – Californication (1999, 180g, Vinyl

Living Colour Time’s Up-I had the original CD and it sounded like a really good production with plenty of power. I recently bought a single album version Epic 466920 1 that is anaemic and limp compared to the CD.It also is very quiet perhaps because both sides are very long.I wonder if compression has contributed to make this vinyl sound so bad.There is a double album pressing that might be much better sounding. Maybe as time goes on they will add more to the info. Would be a tremendous release if done properly!You would be better off buying the Cd as it sounds much better and you receive a lyrical booklet which is not contained with the record. With less audible distortion on this release compared to Californication, my ears were instead drawn to how much of a mess the band sounds when they have no dynamics to breathe with. The choruses especially sound like a band trying to fit both themselves and their instruments into a telephone booth. Interestingly enough, the vinyl release of this album was also mastered by Vlado Meller, but doesn’t seem to be subject to the clipping of the original release! 5 The rest all have significant mixing and clipping issues and are generally hard to listen to from a songwriting angle as well. Left is before, right is after. Both versions are made the same loudness, so you can more easily see the differences. These are sections of “Hurt” by Johnny Cash, “The Blister Exists” by Slipknot, and “The Day That Never Comes” by Metallica, respectively.

Californication - Reissue - Cut by Bernie Grundman | Steve Californication - Reissue - Cut by Bernie Grundman | Steve

Coming off the rough and odd production stylings of Californication and By the Way, Stadium Arcadium is absolutely a breath of fresh air. The instrumentation is finally given the room to finally bounce around without hogging up each other’s sonic space. That being said, Meller again clipped the album for its digital mastering, making every instrument unable to really reach their full potential. The clipping is, again, not as bad as Californication, but is still quite audible, such as on “Stadium Arcadium” and “Animal Bar”. The vinyl release, however, was mastered by audiophile-beloved Steve Hoffman, monarch of the Steve Hoffman Music Forums, and apparently sounds great, averting the clipping of the digital release! I could lie with the shit sound, but I must have cleaned the record 10 times and my needle thinking I was crazy. For me Californication is an album which I play along to, and when my brother and I get out the guitars to have a jam, the Chili Peppers staples, "Californiation", "Otherside", "Scar Tissue", "Road Trippin'" and "This Velvet Glove" are what we regularly turn to (usually spliced in with some choice moments from Bloodsugar...). It is a record which, when played correctly by two trained and highly professional musicians such as me and my brother, can have enormous bonding qualities, and I like to think that it has brought we two siblings closer together. During my music technology studies, I clearly remember my university lecturer talking about both records and how he’d gone from being a huge fan of the band in the early 90s to woefully disappointed by the release of 1999s Californication.The practice of applying excess compression to boost the overall perceived volume artificially progressed exponentially throughout the 90s. By the time we reached the decade’s end, there were several notable examples where even non-audiophile listeners began to notice quality issues. Perhaps most famously, Red Hot Chili Peppers “Californication” and Metallica’s “Death Magnetic Magnetic” were among some of the worst offenders. Since the bad old days of the late 90s and 2000s, things have eased off a little. Some balance restored in recent years, partly because the industry recognized there is a problem, but also because of changing listening habits. Throughout the loudness wars, vinyl releases often avert excessive dynamic range compression and clipping by featuring a different, more dynamic master. All versions of Californication officially released in 1999 (as well as the 2019 picture disc release and 2014 digital remaster), however, seem as though they have the same ridiculous clipping. Other released versions of Californication—some official, some unofficial—feature different masters and sometimes different mixes of songs. Sadly, there are countless records out there (particularly from the late 90s and 2000s) that are the victim of poor quality mastering.

Californication by Red Hot Chili Peppers - Rate Your Music Californication by Red Hot Chili Peppers - Rate Your Music

The Red Hot Chili Peppers are a particularly good example, as their 1991 classic Blood Sugar Sex Magik stands in stark comparison. Here, the dynamics are superb, the mastering compression is mild, and in my opinion, it’s one of the best recordings to come out of the 90s. While the 2014 digital remaster of Californication has as much rampant clipping as the original release, it features a slightly different mix of “Savior”, one with “all in the hand” vocals during its outro. (I couldn’t find a posting of this mix on YouTube, so this is the passage in question on my “dynamic edit” of the release.) The band’s Greatest Hits album contains a number of songs from Californication, (specifically “Parallel Universe”, “Scar Tissue”, “Otherside”, “Californication”, and “Road Trippin’”) and they have a bit higher dynamic range than their retail counterparts, and notably less distortion. Even “Californication”, which is 0.7dB quieter on Greatest Hits, has a lot less hiss than its previous release. (It should be noted though, that the Greatest Hits mix of “Californication” has organ in its first verse and runs through the first chorus twice.) Finally, we have the picture disc. What you’ll notice right away is an increase in underlying surface noise. Picture discs are renowned for their added surface noise as a byproduct of how they’re made. In terms of the master, I’d say this was the same master as the original, sadly, as the distortion on the guitar solo is still very clear. Interestingly, though, the overall volume is lower than the original. What Does a LOUDNESS WAR Master Look Like?I'm not sure if it's remastered, etc. At that price and if they are going to have it done at BGM, I'd assume it is a remaster but that is only an assumption. Honestly, it's not enough detail to draw too much conclusion. What this album needs is a complete remix from top to bottom, just imagine how good it could have sounded. Sadly I doubt we will ever know.